“There is no stop the clock. There is no grace period. There is no pause.” So said Thomas Regnier, a spokesman for the European Commission, in response to calls for a pause on the EU’s AI Act. These landmark rules on artificial intelligence will, then, be rolled out according to the timeline specified in the legislation. The EC will ignore calls from 46 CEOs across the continent to halt the legislation for two years — including me. This will surprise some people. My company, Kayrros, was the world’s first to track and attribute methane globally. We were cited when John…

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German startup Enerkii has launched an energy-as-a-service model that aims to cut power bills in half for industrial customers — and decarbonise them in the process. The model uses an in-house operating system (OS) to calculate the optimal solar energy configuration for any company in around 15 minutes. Then it provides the hardware stack to set it up — solar panels, battery storage, EV charging, and, soon, heat pumps.  Henrik Abel, co-founder of Enerkii, said the approach shifts from simply installing or leasing solar panels to offering a turnkey (or ener-key) energy management system. “The era of ‘solar-only’ energy solutions…

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Dutch startup Whisper has emerged from stealth with a cybersecurity platform that promises to detect online threats before they strike. It plans to do this with what it calls a “God Mode” view of the internet. At the heart of Whisper’s approach is a massive, real-time map of global internet infrastructure. The map is built from more than 45 billion data points sourced from 18 different systems, such as domain name registries (DNS), IP address databases, routing protocols (BGP), and ownership records (Whois).  Using knowledge graph technology to organise this information, the map updates in sub-seconds. Whisper’s CEO Leonardo Carlo…

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London-based insurtech startup Laka has raised $10.4mn in Series B funding as it eyes profitability at the end of next year. Laka offers “collective” insurance for bikes and e-scooters, pooling claims across a community of riders. Instead of fixed, upfront premiums, customers pay a variable monthly fee based on the total number of claims across the entire user base. The fee is capped at a maximum amount based on the value of their gear. Fewer claims mean lower costs for everyone.   Laka provides the insurance cover both directly and through retailers like Decathlon, Brompton Bikes, Gazelle, and Ribble Bikes.  Tobias…

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Funding focus is a new series analysing cash flow into the European tech ecosystem. Last week, we looked at the largest investment rounds in the Netherlands, and now we’re honing in on Europe’s budding fusion energy sector.  European fusion energy startups raised a record €290mn in the first half of this year as VCs bet big on a technology with the potential to supply virtually limitless clean power. Funding in 2025 has already eclipsed 2024 levels — the previous record year — which saw fusion energy companies raise €185mn, according to Dealroom data. Leading the pack this year was Munich-based…

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